Chapter 13

The Weaver’s words diffused through my mind like ink in water, impossible to remove and coloring every thought even as we tore the silk from the Pokemon Ranger. Hayate had moved first, legs and hands still trembling from the fear that had gripped him only minutes earlier. He’d been the first to move, showing a care for others beneath the nonchalance that broke even through terror made manifest.

Most of my Pokemon were worried enough to secure the perimeter even if I knew the Weaver of Histories would not be back any time soon, but Honey and Princess helped with the tougher parts of the silk wrapped around the Ranger’s mouth—the latter with her psychic powers. I held no delusions, however. If Leavanny had wanted the strings to be harder than steel, they would have been, meaning he’d most likely planned on letting the ranger go by our hands.

He had told me that violence was never his first choice, and I was inclined to believe him.

“Thank you so much,” the man heaved through labored breaths.

Upon closer inspection, he was quite striking to look at. His eyes flooded with sheer relief were two different colors, one light brown and the other the kind of blue you’d see in the sky on a beautiful, cloudless summer day. His face was full of stubble and he smelled like he hadn’t washed in days given that his forest-green uniform was soaked in sweat, but at the very least, he was safe.

Honey raised the man to his feet, patting him on the shoulder. He was rather tall and bulky, but there was a frailty about him that only came when you believed you’d almost died. I called Buddy over and had him cool the man down while he gathered his spirits enough to speak. I also scooped Mimi out of my pocket now that the danger was over, and the steel type seemed to be quite solemn, as they always were after fights like these. They’d heard everything the Weaver had said to me.

“Field Ranger Isaac Bennett, right?” Hayate said, voice slightly shaky. The ranger was Madeline and Catherine’s contact more than his, and it showed. Isaac answered with a silent nod. “I—” the Johtoan’s jaw clenched. “Let’s get out of here first.”

“Good idea,” I said. “We shouldn’t have any trouble. Can you walk?”

“Mhm,” Isaac hummed.

We trudged through the woods in silence without bidding the Sewaddle farewell or even witnessing their evolutions. Our first job had been, it seemed, a failure, but there was much to think about the state of Unova’s wilds now. Even in Sinnoh, I’d never been quite adept at knowing the inner politics of wild Pokemon. The push and the pull, the give and take; it had all been a nebulous idea beyond where I could see, but even with Bellatrix I’d never gotten truly involved in the minutiae of it all.

But I was getting ahead of myself. There were more immediate problems right in front of me, and this was more of a long-term goal.

Now out of the groove, Isaac sat against a tree. Probably in his mid-twenties, the man looked quite a bit less shaken in the twenty minutes or so it took us to get here, proof that he was more accustomed to dangerous run-ins with Pokemon than Hayate, whose face still remained drained of color. Still, I suspected that this was the closest call the ranger had ever had despite the amount of badges on his chest.

I needed to learn what each meant, eventually.

“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked him.

He rolled his shoulders and cleared his throat, asking for water first, which we promptly handed to him. He downed Hayate’s entire flask and sighed in relief. 

“Dragons above, I was so thirsty. Thank you.” He wiped the side of his mouth. He spoke in an accent I hadn’t heard yet in the little corner of Unova I’d seen. “I don’t… remember what happened exactly. One second I was waiting back at the grove to meet you, and the next everything was dark and tight. I have…” he frowned, going quiet and placing a finger in-between his lips, “I have fragments of memories of trying to put up a fight, but nothing concrete. I know my Pokemon are safe, at least.” His hands gently passed over his two Pokeballs.

I’d hoped to glimpse further into the Weaver’s mindset, but all this information did was confirm my priors. We told Isaac about the Weaver and his capabilities, and he seemed clueless about him. Clearly information about such a Pokemon was under lock and key, only available to people beyond his position.

With little else to go on, I decided to tell everyone a sanitized of what had transpired, keeping any Legendary talk a secret. I sold it as the Weaver being an influential figure in Pinwheel Forest, but did not divulge anything else. It was a lie by omission, the kind that made my skin crawl a lot less. I would have a conversation about what truly happened with my Pokemon later, but neither of these people were close enough to me to know my deepest secrets. Not like my people in Sinnoh were.

“Such a powerful Pokemon,” Isaac whispered under his breath. “Powerful enough to cut away memories.” A shiver ran through him, the fear that he’d lost something he would never even remember to mourn. Fist clenching, the dark-haired ranger’s lips thinned. “I’m sorry I got you kids into such terrible danger. No one deserves to go through this.”

I blinked, the words sounding like Kalosian to me. The idea of someone feeling responsible for getting me in danger, while not completely alien, was the last thing I’d expected. From afar, my Jellicent and I shared a look. Children were not supposed to feel such close brushes with death.

“It’s okay, we got involved of our own… volition,” Hayate hoarsely forced out. “And you didn’t know.”

I patted the boy on the shoulder, and he allowed himself to relax, if only a smidge. “I’m completely fine,” I said. “Not my first rodeo; I’ve seen plenty in my time.”

Isaac frowned at me. With the scars his sight held no true surprise, but it was still melancholic. “That is incredibly sad.”

I flinched. “Wha—it’s fine, really!”

“Indigoan?” he asked after a beat of silence.

Why did everyone always think that? “Sinnoh, just up north.”

The ranger winced. “Tough last year, I heard. I hope Unova treats you better, even if you’ve been off to a rough start.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to check on my Pokemon now,” he said. “Then I’ll have to report to HQ in Nacrene. I assume that’s where you kids are headed next.” Both Hayate and I nodded. “I’d offer to give you a lift, since I don’t think that pretty bird can fit the two of you.” He glanced at my Togekiss, who puffed up unpleasantly at the assumption. “But rangers are forbidden to take any action that would give trainers an unfair advantage in the Circuit, so… unless you consider yourselves to be in great danger, I’ll have to take my leave.”

A wink followed the statement, meaning that if we wanted to take advantage of an apparent loophole, we’d be able to. I looked at Hayate, who was considering the offer carefully. If I were in his shoes, shaken after my first bout of great danger, I’d most likely have taken it. Memories of Sinnoh flashed by: a crippling phobia of Golbat, mouths swallowing me whole in nightmarish visions. Dreams of Mars cutting me open with knives after our first encounter at Valley Windworks. The powerlessness of it all, the sinking feeling of being utterly powerless in the face of anything that wanted to kill you.

And so, in turn, I had transformed myself into a weapon, slowly but surely, one bad decision at a time. What would this new friend of mine do?

He bit into the side of his finger and shook his head. “I’m alright. Thank you, Ranger Bennett.”

Isaac nodded, a slight understanding smile reaching his lips. “Take care of yourselves, kids. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of each other. If there’s anything else I can ask of you, I’ll contact you through the sisters.”

Madeline and Catherine, he meant. Just as he reached for a Pokeball, I called out. “Wait! I’d love to talk to you further, even on the phone.”

This man. He intrigued me. He had a certain gentleness about him that explained why he was going behind his organization’s back and asking trainers to handle odd jobs he wouldn’t be able to under the Corps’ watchful eye. The way they’d been described to me thus far, and from the research I’d done, the Ranger Corps seemed to almost be a parallel organization to the League with its own rules. Nothing like Sinnoh’s, who answered to the government in nearly all matters.

Parts of him reminded me of Craig Goodwill, but that would be reductive of the man who’d given his life to save the world. There was a tiredness and cynicism in his different-colored eyes that told me he held little faith in his work, though that might have been because he’d just been kidnapped by an all-powerful being in service of the Concept of Justice—or one third of it.

There were a few things I wanted to learn from him in time. Mainly, the inner politics of the Ranger Corps, their view of Unova as a whole from their point of view, and their relationship with Pokemon, which, as it turned out, was not so black and white.

“That would be fine,” he said. 

We exchanged contact information, and the ranger soared into the sky on a Braviary’s back.

——

Our travels were largely silent from that point on despite my efforts to connect to Hayate. The boy even kept to his routine of training in the evening, but there was a subtle fragility to him now as if he was perpetually uncomfortable in his own skin. The way he now startled at the little sounds of the forest, how he would constantly look behind him, or the way he would wipe the corner of his eyes when he believed no one was looking. A silent crier, then. 

It would take a few more days for us to get back on the main road on our way to Nacrene, and before we reached the city, I wanted to get him out of this… rut.

Night had fallen, and we’d set up camp like usual. I had spoken to my Pokemon away from it about the real substance of my conversation with Leavanny, and was content to watch Buddy work on his creation of Night Shades for which progress was incredibly slow but steady.

For a while, at least. But I couldn’t let Hayate cope with this on his own.

I bit the inside of my lip as I walked. Part of why he’d had his innocence shattered today was my fault for obsessing over any scraps of information I could find without considering the consequences. Traveling with someone meant that it was not only my safety that had to be considered, but his and his Pokemon’s as well. In my arrogance, I had seen Unova as a coddled country and thus did not consider the possibility of being outclassed so soon, and by a Pokemon whose role was not fighting, no less. 

Even after my words to Sunshine about how there were powerful people everywhere, I hadn’t realized I had subconsciously fallen into the same trap as he no doubt had when he’d struck first at Leavanny during those first few fights.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, to remember how prone to obsession I still remained. 

“I suppose it’ll always be a part of me,” I whispered to myself, voice carried by the forest.

I found him a little ways away from camp in an area that was relatively open for the forest, but still a chore to move through without paying attention. It was odd, wandering alone; I never truly was. I felt naked without one of my Pokemon to protect me should things go south, but it would have felt impolite to have the talk I intended to have with someone else listening in. Even Mimi hadn’t come; the steel type was in one of their moods they usually got into after days like these. When they seemed old and weary, almost tired, like the Melmetal they’d spawned from within the depths of the earth I had found them in.

My breath caught in my throat as I remembered the torrent of mercury, along with the promise I’d made them. They were tired of fighting. Of the cycle of violence. I hoped I had done well to keep my word today.

Hayate was training, still with that blank expression etched upon his visage as if someone had carved it into stone over the years. There was not one trace of weakness upon it—and I doubted he would allow it when his Pokemon could see. Had he even told them about it? They seemed to be training without a second thought, with Stantler, Lickitung and Dunsparce engrossed in some kind of three-way fight not unlike the one that had gone viral between my own Pokemon.

My eyes didn’t remain focused on them for long, though from what I could see, Lickitung was in the best spot. Stantler was focusing all of his energy into taking down Dunsparce, whose offensive power trumped the both of them, while Lickitung only exerted herself when Stantler needed the help.

Hayate jumped when he heard me step behind him, then awkwardly ran a hand over his black hair as if he could pretend that was what he’d wanted to do all along. Silently, I slid next to him as we watched his Pokemon train without a word. Apart from his Pokemon and the sounds of the forest, there was nothing but a deafening quiet.

It began slowly. Cracks in the facade.

A twitch of the lips. An open mouth, wanting to say something, Hayate reaching for words that would never be enough. His breathing hitched, but he swallowed it down, jaw clenching hard enough for the muscle beneath his cheek to jump. His eyes remained stubbornly fixed ahead, watching Dunsparce narrowly dodge a Take Down, little wings flapping as he jumped out of the way.

“Good job, Dunsparce,” he tried to yell. His voice broke apart like porcelain struck against stone, the words scattering into pieces. “Good… job.” His fingers curled against his knees. 

I stayed quiet, though this time facing him with an understanding look. It’s okay, I was telling him. 

His dark brown eyes were wet when they met mine.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

One hand shot up to his face. He pressed the heel of his palm against his eye, then dragged it roughly across the other, wiping away tears before they could properly fall. More replaced them almost immediately. His lips pulled downward with such naked misery that I almost looked away out of instinct. There was something unbearably private about seeing someone lose control of their own face. 

“Fuck,” he repeated, quieter. “I’m sorry.”

There was something deeply broken about Hayate Hoshino beneath the veneer of nonchalance he always carried with him like a shield. I suspected it was the way he’d been raised that had him apologizing for crying. The same beliefs that had seen my mentor Jasmine wear the horrors that had beset her life on her sleeve with pride had been imprinted onto the teenage boy in front of me by his family—or at least I suspected so. Not to brush off near-death experiences like this one, but to brush off weakness in general. To amputate it like a rotting limb, and to be fine with whatever life threw your way. Such was the way of Indigo, where death was more familiar than any other country on this planet.

He had not faced the Weaver himself, nor directly seen what the Leavanny was capable of within these memories, but that was enough, just as it had been for me many times. His mind had been violated without his consent, toyed with as if he were a mere plaything. An object. Fear could be crippling, larger than life, and spread through you. Seep into your skin and take ownership of your body.

“Don’t apologize. It’s okay to be scared.”

“I—I thought that was it,” he cried. “I thought I was going to die.”

“I know,” I said. 

“It could have taken anything from my mind. Anything,” he continued to sob, hand wiping away at endless tears. I’d emphasized that this was not the case, but there was no way to truly know, was there? “And all I could do was sit there and hope for the best! It—it was like a fucking natural disaster. All I could do was hope it passed by and I lived. I’m pathetic…”

“You are not.”

The force behind my words made him look up at me. The gloom of the forest had formed into a patchwork of light which shone through the many leaves of the trees. It caught him unevenly, illuminating one half of his tear-streaked face while leaving the other in shadow. 

“You did not lose control of yourself and run; you did not scream or panic at me in the timeline in which I battled with the Weaver. You simply were powerless to make a difference.”

His face twisted again. “Tha—that’s supposed to make me feel better?” 

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s supposed to stop you from blaming yourself.”

A bitter laugh escaped him and immediately dissolved into another sob. “I hate that. The feeling it gave me. That nothing else up to this moment in my life had ever mattered. That I might as well have wasted the last seventeen years of my life.” He sniffled. “I fucking hate that.”

There was anger underneath the fear now. I could see it taking shape in the way his shoulders tightened, in the humiliation burning across his face. I recognized it immediately. Fear turned inward until it became shame, then shame sharpened into anger because anger was so much easier to carry.

It had happened to me more times than I cared to count.

“You didn’t waste them.” I reached out with a hand—

He brushed me off. “Don’t coddle me.”

“I’m not coddling you. I’m talking to you.”

Hayate’s hands clenched around his pants. “...Sorry.”

By now, his Pokemon had noticed that something was off and had stopped fighting, but he held out a hand to them, as if to gesture that everything was okay.

“Did you tell them?” I whispered.

“No.”

“Were you going to?”

“...no.”

“You need to. They are your partners, your friends, your family. They’re something to you,” I told him. “You should trust them enough to show your vulnerabilities.”

“I wanted to, but—I was scared.”

I took a deep breath, dragging the teenager down to sit on the ground with me. The grass and plants prickled at my other hand as we sat, and the scent of the earth reached my nostrils. 

“When I first started my journey,” I said, “I was kidnapped by one of Team Galactic’s admins. She strapped me to a chair and essentially tortured me. It wasn’t that long, in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like she pressed that knife into my skin for hours.” Mars hadn’t been a gentle one, even during our first meeting. “I’d say that was the first event that really got me to decide I was done being a victim, even if I hadn’t known it at the time. And just like you, I cried. Hell, I was despondent for days. I didn’t even know if I’d continue my journey.”

Hayate still cried, though quietly, and his Pokemon watched from afar as he listened, and he finally decided to call them over.

“I wouldn’t dedicate to turning myself into a knife capable of cutting apart anything that would hurt me for a couple more months,” I said, thinking of Solaceon, “but that was the first time I truly felt powerless. It’s not something you forget easily.”

Stantler nudged his head against his trainer’s shoulder while Lickitung patted him on the head and Dunsparce jumped onto his lap. They did not need to know why he was crying—not yet, at least. They just loved him, and that was enough.

“And look at me now,” I said. “Still powerless in the face of forces bigger than you or I could ever hope to be. That’s the thing, Hayate. Even for Champions, there is always a bigger fish. Someone or something they can never possibly hope to cross. Someone or something that could splatter them against concrete like paste should they want to.”

Hayate answered with a wet laugh. “You’re horrible at this.”

“Aren’t I just?” I grinned at him. “But the moral of the lesson is, the world is a big place. No matter how much you try, something will always be capable of killing you, in the end. That’s why I don’t obsess over that stuff anymore.” I shrugged, ignoring the bile in my throat and the itch in the back of my neck. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t measures you can take to minimize risk, but… we just got unlucky. And I dragged you into something I shouldn’t have. I should have been the one apologizing from the start.”

He nodded, hair falling over his eyes as he hugged his Dunsparce. “Can I be alone for a while?” he asked. “I need to tell my Pokemon about what happened.”

I stood, giving him a thumbs up. “Of course. I’ll be back at camp if you need anything.”

I slipped away, humming softly to myself as I tried to shake the lingering nausea. Already, my mind was turning the Weaver over from every angle, searching for weaknesses, contingencies, anything I could use should our next meeting prove less cordial. I knew where this would lead. For weeks, perhaps months, I would pick apart every second of the encounter just as I had nearly every other fight to the death I’d lost or not clearly won yet somehow walked away from safe and sound.

No matter what I told Hayate, the gears always kept turning.

I really was a hypocrite.